


About Last Straws

by annwritesfics



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Asphyxiation, Bleeding, Choking, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Extremely Dubious Consent, Face Slapping, Gaslighting, Other, Physical Abuse, Rough Sex, Slut Shaming, Sort Of, Violent Sex, hella projection on these characters, im pretty sure whatever it is you’re expecting for this fic it isn’t it, is OFC whump a thing?, it has to do with the gaslighting, not plot other than ‘Tommy lets bad things happen to OFC’, this is it, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:48:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24246778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annwritesfics/pseuds/annwritesfics
Summary: “What am I, exactly?” She asked. She wasn’t accusing him, it was a genuine question.He looked at her and realized he didn’t deserve her. Or, more accurately, she didn’t deserve what he was going to allow to be done to her.
Relationships: Oswald Mosley/Original Female Character(s), Tommy Shelby & Original Female Character(s), Tommy Shelby/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 62





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please, pay attention to the tags. I may have to update them to fully warn but this is not the most violent depraved and horrible thing ever but it’s not a fun and happy fic either

She looked terrified. He couldn’t recall a time before when it had been just them, together, where she had looked genuinely afraid as she did now.

Perhaps it was because he’d told her what Oswald Mosley wanted. And that he intended to give it to him.

“What am I, exactly?” She asked. She wasn’t accusing him, it was a genuine question.

He looked at her and realized he didn’t deserve her. Or, more accurately, she didn’t deserve what he was going to allow to be done to her.

“You’re a Peaky fucking Blinder is what you are. You’re our most important fucking member until I say otherwise.”

She gave him a look. A look that said she didn’t really believe him.

“And what are you going to do to me?”

He shook his head. He wished he was in charge of that so it might be easier on her. Truthfully, he had no earthly idea what that man wanted with someone like her.

“It’s not me, sweetheart. I wouldn’t hurt you.”

She shook her head. A gentle smile spread her lips, but it wasn’t happiness. She was sad, he could see, because she’d never wanted anything like this. All she’d wanted was to love him and to be around him, with no expectation of an emotional return, and to be left to her mundane hobbies. She loved him and he couldn’t return the sentiment and now he was using her as a bargaining chip, as a common whore for the most immoral and ruthless man he cared to think about.

“But you’d let him.”

He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t let him. Not unless it was of the utmost importance, as it was now. He would not let this girl, this girl he’d grown up with, be used and abused by a man who likely had asked for her only as a personal slight against him. He couldn’t do it. Not unless other lives depended on it.

But then, that did beg the question. Was he truly willing to sacrifice her for this cause? To appease him momentarily, to sate him enough that he may be more subdued when the time came to end him?

He shook his head. Of course he was willing. She meant little more to him than a common whore, after all. He’d just have to tell himself that. That was what she was now, except common whores got paid, which made her worse than that. A mindless slut was what she was, or what she would become, and so he would have to think of and treat her as such.

“I have to. Now get out, he’ll be waiting. He hates waiting.”

There were tears in her eyes. He could see them, no matter how hard she tried to conceal them. That was good, he supposed. He had heard first-hand that Mosley liked it when his women cried. Although he hoped she had the sense to wait until he actually touched her before she started sobbing. If she didn’t it would become all-too-obvious she truly didn’t want him. Not that that would much matter to him, but if word got out people would talk, and not in the way he wanted. So he’d just have to warn her about that.

She was seconds away from stepping out the door.

“Sweetheart.” He turned to look at her.

There was a small ‘hmm’ from her. She didn’t want to speak because she knew she would start crying.

“Save the waterworks for when he really starts hurting you. He likes it but he won’t want it right away. Make him work for it.”

He watched a single tear slide down her cheek as she bit her quivering lower lip, raised her chin, and nodded quickly. She rushed out the door.

Make him work for it.

_Make him fucking work for it._

How the fuck could he have said that to her? How the fuck could he even live with himself when he knew that, in a room not far from his own, his childhood friend was being used and defiled in ways she’d never imagined?

Well, he presumed he’d live with it the same way he lived with the million other horrible things he’d done. He just wouldn’t. He’d stick it in a box in his head and he’d take it out and think about it when he couldn’t fall asleep or he was bored or he was just in a shitty mood. Otherwise he’d just ignore it and do something equally as horrible or perhaps worse. It did usually depend on the day and whether he was a gun-brandishing gang leader or a socialist speaking in the house for the rights of the working man. He’d found quickly there was little difference in the way you had to conduct yourself to succeed in either profession.

He’d speak to her in the morning. Ask her how it was. If he had to just shoot Mosley then.

He wouldn’t, of course, even if she said he had to. And she wouldn’t, of course, because she just wanted to please him and do what he asked.

He was reminded once again she loved him. She was doing this for him. She was willingly giving herself over to a man she’d openly expressed burning hatred for, simply because he was the one who had asked. She might have laughed at Polly and Aida or slapped Arthur, and truth be told he wasn’t sure what exactly she would have done to Michael, but him? He’d never once heard a no from her.

Ever. About anything.

He cringed, thinking to back when they were simply teenagers. He’d been a lot kinder then, and his list of misdeeds included only a few minor robberies and a scuffle here or there. But he’d still known how she felt about him and he’d still taken advantage of her for it. Nothing had changed there.

Maybe nothing ever would.

Maybe it was time to put this in its own little box and put it in the back of his mind and then bring it out when he was feeling particularly pissy or just badly about himself. There wasn’t any need to think about it now if work was getting done.

He would have maybe thought something about how she was the one doing all the work presently, but it was in its box already and thoughts like that wouldn’t do.

=

It dawned on him the next morning he may have made a mistake. That maybe this was too far, even for him, that she might not ever do anything for him again.

(It might have worried somebody else that he wasn’t afraid of losing her friendship or anything like that and instead afraid of losing her eagerness to carry out tasks for him. But it didn’t worry him at all. not Tommy Shelby. Not one bit.)

Because Mosley had left early in the morning and told him he might want to have somebody tend to her. That she was asleep and had slept fitfully the entire night, with bouts of waking up wherein he had felt compelled personally to exhaust her once more and send her back to sleep.

(He knew damn well himself she only ever slept badly when she was upset about something. Normally she slept peacefully, and with such ease that he envied her. He would have known, what with the countless nights he had spent enjoying the advantages that came with having a friend who was in love with you and was desperate for you to love her back.)

“Nice little whore, that one. Tell her I’ll be wanting her again soon. But without as much whining this time, preferably. Kept telling me it hurt, as if that wasn’t the point.” Mosley had said.

He had wanted to pull out one of the guns he kept on him at all times. He had wanted to shove the barrel so far down his throat the bullet would shoot out his ass. He had wanted to knock him down a peg, to tell him he didn’t get to just call her when he wanted because she wasn’t one of the whores you’d find on the street. That if he ever hurt her again, intentionally or not, his body would be unidentifiable if they ever found it.

But he hadn’t said any of that. He’d plastered on a neutral expression and said “I’ll tell her,” and he knew in the back of his mind that he would. Because he needed her to keep him happy.

He’d almost given it a second thought when he saw her. She was asleep, as he’d said, a frown seemingly permanent on her face. Black streaks marked exactly where all her tears had fallen. Her lips were chafed and swollen and it looked as though he’d bitten her bottom lip once or twice. She was naked, as he’d known she would be, but that didn’t really bother him. He’d seen it enough, anyway. What bothered him was the faint outlines of fingers he could see around her neck, the obvious handprints on her chest and back and ass, the dried blood adorning her thighs. Though there wasn’t much, he cringed at the idea that he’d managed that. He didn’t want to know how.

He’d gone to gently wake her, but the second he touched her shoulder she’d woken with a start and looked at him in fear. And then she’d seen it was him and she’d barely relaxed, and the fear had not receded.

That was precisely the moment he thought he maybe shouldn’t have done this. When she was so obviously terrified of him and that he might try to have her as well, but when she didn’t try to move away from him at all. She simply looked up at him and waited for something he hoped would never come for her.

“Do you want me to have a maid draw you a bath?”

She nodded.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and grabbed her hand, rubbing it in an attempt to be soothing. And then he stopped because he didn’t want her to get the wrong idea. And then he began again because he thought she deserved the comfort, regardless of what she may make of it.

“I’ll order her not to comment on your appearance and to just help you how you decide.”

Her face grew confused for a moment and then her eyes darted to the large mirror on the wall. She stared a moment, though not at herself. She stared as if there was something else happening there, within the mirror, and she was glad to not be part of it. And then she took in her appearance and she gasped, clasping a hand over her mouth.

She drew her hand away from his and that brought him out of it. Out of the moment where he’d sat on a bed next to his childhood friend, who was naked and baring the evidence of what she’d done for him.

It was disgusting. It really was. It was disgusting, and he didn’t know how he could let this happen to her. Continue to let it happen.

So he twisted it. To make things easier. He took the thought and changed it around, and then suddenly _she was disgusting._ For letting him do that to her, for not having the dignity to speak up for herself and tell him to stop.

(She had told him to stop, she would later reveal, as a desperate plea in an already entirely unpleasant conversation. She’d told him to stop even though she knew he wouldn’t, and that hearing her begging would only urge him on.)

He took his hand away too and he stood up, turning towards the door.

“He’ll be wanting you again soon.”

“Again-?”

“Again.”

He could see her as she grew frantic at the idea. The simple invocation of the thought she would be servicing that man again at his request.

“But you didn’t say-“

“I never said how many times it would be. I had hoped it was only the one, but I was wrong. You’ll forgive me that mistake, I hope.”

He really didn’t see how she could. But knowing her, if she came out of this with all her mind left working, she would find a way.

“Now, please. Take a bath. I have to have those sheets washed.”

He was almost out the door when he remembered. When he remembered that he had to be a little extra cruel, to just twist the knife he’d so quickly, effortlessly and willingly embedded directly into her back.

“He says not so much whining next time, whether you can help it or not. Told me if you can’t keep it down and realize he wants it to hurt, he might have to cut your tongue out.”

Mosley hadn’t said that. That had been all him, in all his self-destructive glory, apparently wanting to further ruin a relationship that had been thin and brittle and nearly one-sided at the very best in the first place.

And then he left.

He knew she was crying. He could hear it, her heaving breaths occasionally interrupted by a hitch and a sob.

He didn’t care, he told himself. He had no reason to. He’d never been interested in wanton sluts who didn’t even get paid for their work before, anyway. That’s what she was, regardless of whether it was of her own volition or whether he’d forced her to become it. He’d never cared before and he wasn’t going to start now.

=

It was a mistake, he had realized. It really, truly was. One of the worst he’d made since he could really remember.

She barely slept now, he knew. He could hear her wandering around the house at night, feet dragging, or he’d walk past her room and see the light near her desk was still on. He’d even once heard her whimpering, and so he’d cracked the door open and peaked in, and seen she was simply having a nightmare. He watched a moment as she muttered his name in a broken tone, ignored the urge to go and wake her up and hold her and tell her it would all be okay, and then he closed the door and went to bed.

Mosley had asked for her a countless number of times by now. Since the first time he’d used her he had decided she was his personal whore, and Tommy had let him think that. As far as he knew he hadn’t eased up on her or become gentler, and instead was becoming worse. And, as far as he knew, she still hadn’t grown accustomed to it.

(She never would, he thought. She wasn’t suited for this sort of thing. Some were, of course, those who could ignore the potential emotional and physical trauma and just look at it as all in a day’s work. Somebody who could put everything in a box in their mind, like he did, but unlike him not ever open the box, regardless of how it called to be opened. She was not one of those people and there was no use trying to force her to be one.)

It had been nearly the last straw for her the fourth time, he thought. He’d seen it in her eyes so clearly, the vivid image of an old and decaying thread, seconds away from snapping, hanging on now by a single fiber. He’d been half expecting to one morning wake up and discover that Oswald Mosley had been mysteriously killed in his sleep. She stayed nights with him regularly enough now, anyway, and nobody really knew except anyone who’d Tommy decided was allowed to.

(That included Polly and Arthur, but not Lizzie. He could only imagine what reaction she might have to the idea that the girl she watched him constantly string along was now a peace prize for who was probably the most prominent fascist in Britain. He hoped she would never find out, or he would be the one going to sleep and never waking back up.)

He’d called her into his office days ago, and that was when he’d realized it was truly a mistake.

There was nothing behind her eyes, he saw. He already knew she wasn’t really sleeping, but exactly how much damage had been done he hadn’t seen. He hadn’t had time to pay attention to her lately, which was nearly laughable. He didn’t have time for her suddenly, now that she was doing his bidding every other night. Now that the marks on her neck were red and obvious and ugly and ever-present. Now that she walked with a slight limp every time she arrived back at the house.

(Which, he also realized, it was only a matter of time before Lizzie did find out. At this point he could only let her show the evidence of the mistreatment she frequently endured and face the consequences of a furious wife who knew much more about the business than he ever would, or buy her make-up. Which meant it was between Lizzie verbally destroying him or having to see her eyes as she realized he wasn’t going to ever do anything about this except cover it up.)

In his office that day, sitting on a comfortable seat and looking anything but, she’d once again asked him a question.

“What am I?” She said. Once again a question born out of genuine curiosity, except now the answer she dreaded was the only one he could give.

He couldn’t tell her that. He might have to think it to himself to be able to cope with the idea of what was being done to her, but he wouldn’t say it to her face. He couldn’t do that to her.

But why not? He’d done just about everything else to her, if indirectly. He’d let it happen to her. He’d walked past her room while Mosley was taking her and he’d heard some of what he said to her. The horrible, disgusting things that he knew were probably common for the average whore to hear.

But she’d never been a whore before, and she’d never heard those things before, and that, he realized, was precisely why this was a mistake. She just wasn’t suited for this type of business.

(And that was precisely why Mosley wanted her, he suspected.)

“You’re a whore, sweetheart.”

The look on her face as he’d said it hurt him more than he had cared to admit. Because she didn’t start crying and she didn’t get angry and she didn’t recoil in shock or horror. Instead she bit her lip and nodded, and got up and left.

That was her last straw, he realized. Or, more accurately, he was. He was the last straw. Maybe he’d always been, but at any rate he especially was now. He was the one thing allowing that last fiber to stay put together, to stay hanging and tying the whole thing together. Tying her to the world and telling her she was still a real person and not just a pleasantly warm toy for a vindictive and truly evil man to get off with.

Maybe he’d heard it. The sound of the last fiber snapping, that was, or maybe he’d seen it. But then again it didn’t really matter. It was gone now and he could clearly see it wasn’t something that could be put back or fixed.

Absently he wondered if he was her last straw, what would be his?

=

His last straw came not a week later when he walked in on them together.

(That wasn’t the right way to describe it. It wasn’t them together, really, because it was Mosley doing it all. But he hadn’t found exactly the right words to call it how it was.)

He’d been meaning to ask her something and it had entirely slipped his mind how late it was and that Mosley had arrived an hour earlier. Finding her light on and the door unlocked, he had opened it and seen what exactly it was that had been happening to her near-daily for a period of time he didn’t care to exactly measure.

She lay limply across the bed, body jolting every few seconds as Mosley thrust into her roughly without a care that she was obviously bleeding. He could hear the sound of it, but it was clearly different from when a woman was abundantly wet, because she seemed to be completely dry. It was an almost grating noise, like sandpaper being dragged against wood, and as he was listening it gradually abated. Because of the blood, he realized.

She was unconscious, judging from her blank expression and the hand locked tightly around her throat. She looked absolutely minuscule in that moment, compared to the man ruthlessly hurting her. As he watched he removed his hand and she gasped back to consciousness, to life, and her face screwed up in pain. Fat tears squeezed out of her eyes and she opened her mouth but covered it just as quickly. She opened her eyes enough to look up at the man above her, and then he watched in abject horror as Mosley slapped her, hard. The noise rang out in the room, a sharp crack as her head turned to the side and thudded into the soft mattress she lay on. Her eyes were still open and they focused on him as he stood in the doorway, and then something snapped in him.

Maybe it was the way she winced every time Mosley was fully inside her. Maybe it was the simple shock of seeing a girl he’d grown up with used like an object. Maybe it was simply that she was the most pathetic thing he had seen in his entire life, a hand mark reddening on her cheek as she stared at him, her eyes begging him to make it stop.

Mosley looked over at him and smirked.

“Ah, mister Shelby. Come to join us or just to watch? You’re welcome, of course, if you’re interested. She has two other perfectly adequate holes.”

He pulled the gun at his side out of its holster, cocked it and pointed it at Mosley. His movements stopped abruptly as he realized what was now happening.

“She’s had enough. Get out of my fucking house.”

The worst part, he thought, wasn’t the way she crawled under the covers of the bed and began sobbing freely the second Mosley was no longer inside her. The worst part was the absolute and unwavering composure Mosley kept up as he dressed and fixed his hair. As if the fact that he’d hurt a girl so badly wasn’t a big deal to him. Tommy knew, of course, it really wasn’t.

He had half a mind to just shoot him then. The thought of the consequences in the back of his mind stopped him.

(He let it stop him. He didn’t shoot the man who deserved it inarguably more than anybody else he’d ever encountered. He just let him go. It struck him then that if that was how it was the gun in his hand didn’t really mean anything.)

“From now on, she’s off-limits. I don’t fucking care if you’re going to fucking die without her. If I ever see you breathing in her direction again I’ll butcher you like a fucking pig and then feed you to my goddamn chickens.”

Mosley stopped in the doorway, about to pass through as Tommy had stepped aside for him.

“Off-limits like the ballerinas?”

He applied just enough pressure to the gun’s trigger that Mosley raised an eyebrow and left.

He uncocked the gun and put it back in its holster, chest rising and falling rapidly.

Then he turned back to the bed and decided he should probably survey the damage. He walked towards her hunched-over form cautiously, unsure of how exactly she would react to him now. He heard her sobs stop as he approached.

She poked her head out from under the covers and looked at him. The red mark from his hand was still there and he felt his stomach twist at the thought. Her nose was runny and there were black streaks down her face once again, detailing exactly where each tear had fallen.

“I’m sorry,” he said dumbly.

He was sorry. As if that would ever be enough. As if that would even come close to making up for the idea that she’d had that happen to her so frequently for so long. As if it would ever be okay again.

I’m sorry.

She sniffed for a moment and wiped at her cheeks.

“I know, Tommy.”

Her voice raised barely above a harsh whisper. She pulled the covers back over her. He stayed and watched as her breathing evened out.

He wanted to pull back the covers and lay down next to her, but he knew that would do more damage than anything else. It wouldn’t do now to continue stringing her along and it would only be a little extra cruel.

He turned around and walked out the door. He’d have to deal with all of this in the morning, he knew, but for now it was in its box. If it was in its box, he didn’t have to think about it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had realized in the four days after he’d kicked Mosley out, that while mistake was one word for what he’d done, mistake did not even begin to cover this.
> 
> A mistake was when he took off his cap and accidentally left it in another room. A mistake was when Lizzie forgot what day Charlie had violin practice on. It was when Finn said something he should not have to somebody who shouldn’t have heard it. This was not a mistake.
> 
> This was bigger than a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure I 100% like this? Idk I might do a prequel thing because I’m horrible and I like to drag out stuff like this. I also had like three different versions of this but this is the one I thought worked the best. But as I mentioned idk so I may post the alternate versions at some point

He had realized in the four days after he’d kicked Mosley out, that while mistake was one word for what he’d done, mistake did not even begin to cover this.

A mistake was when he took off his cap and accidentally left it in another room. A mistake was when Lizzie forgot what day Charlie had violin practice on. It was when Finn said something he should not have to somebody who shouldn’t have heard it. This was not a mistake.

This was bigger than a mistake.

That was proven very efficiently to him after he had decided he would just grit his teeth and go talk to her. He had something of an obligation to, after all. This being his fault and everything.

He had knocked on her door once, then twice, then one more time. Without any answer he had turned the doorknob and opened the door. She never locked her door before and at least that hadn’t changed.

He entered the room and the first thing that hit him was the overwhelming odour of alcohol. He couldn’t tell what it was, exactly, but it had a strong wood scent to it. Like the whiskey he kept downstairs in the kitchen.

She didn’t drink whiskey.

In fact, in the many years he’d known her, he had never known her to drink hardly at all. She’d been drunk exactly one time in her life, which he remembered despite his own drunkenness because it had been the first time they’d slept together. After that she’d never had anything more than a glass on holidays and even then it was sparingly.

But, as he looked at her swaying drunkenly next to her bed, he could tell she’d had quite a bit more than a glass. Walking closer to her and smelling the whiskey so strongly about the room, he had no idea how she hadn’t blacked out yet. She’d always been something of a lightweight.

She had her back turned to him, seemingly fixated on something, and he worried for a moment as he watched her that she might fall over. She looked wobbly at best, and he had half a mind to grab her to steady her. He looked over her shoulder, trying to decipher what it was she was staring at, but he found nothing noteworthy. Besides the painting hung on her wall and the candle on her bedside table there was nothing there.

She swung around to face him suddenly, her eyes blank and unseeing. He doubted if she’d actually been looking at anything at all. She leaned dangerously forward for a moment and he made to catch her, but she managed to steady herself. Her eyes trailed up from his chest and when they stopped at his own eyes, they came back alive. Her brows suddenly furrowed and she stepped back and away from him.

“Why are you here?” She asked, her words surprisingly clear with the exception of a slight slur. Perhaps she wasn’t as drunk as he’d thought.

“I haven’t seen you in days. I figured I would see if you were alright.”

“Alright,” she echoed his word. There was an air of mocking about the way she said it, which he supposed he deserved. Of course she wasn’t alright.

She turned her back to her bed and then flopped backwards onto it, and for a moment there was something like a smile on her face. Her lips turned up just slightly enough that he could imagine it was there, anyway. She let her eyes close.

“What are you drinking?”

“Your whiskey. From downstairs. I had a few glasses but I spilled the rest of it over there.” She pointed at her desk.

He looked over and, sure enough, his bottle of expensive whiskey was tipped over and nearly empty. There was a glass on the desk still half-full with the liquid, and he almost walked over and drank it. God knew he could have used it to deal with this.

(But he didn’t think he really deserved it.)

“You don’t care about me,” she said suddenly. It was a simple statement and he couldn’t make out any accusatory tone behind it. She said it the same way she might say the sky was blue; as if it were a cold, hard fact that could not be changed.

It wasn’t true, of course. It couldn’t be true because he had stopped Mosley from hurting her once he’d seen what was really happening. 

(He, perhaps intentionally, failed to recall the part where he’d ever let it happen in the first place.)

“You’re drunk and you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, stepping closer to her. It occurred to him for a moment that he was telling her she was wrong like he seemed to do so often. Or, at least, he had done so often. It had fallen out of style recently, if only because he hadn’t seen her as much when she was busy elsewhere.

(Busy with Mosley.)

“Yes,” she seemed to ponder the word for a moment, and he thought about how much like a child she sounded when she said it. “I am drunk, but I’m not wrong. You might have cared a little about me before, but I don’t think you do anymore. It’s okay, though, Tommy. I didn’t really care before whether you cared about me or not. It did hurt a little bit, though. But it’s okay, because I can leave you alone and go somewhere else for a while until you need me for something again.”

So she was that kind of drunk. She’d had enough drink that she wasn’t truly inebriated quite yet, but her inhibitions were lowered enough that she saw no reason not to say whatever it was that popped into her head.

He decided to disregard what she’d said and instead just help her get more comfortably to bed. He imagined she would sleep exactly like how she’d landed, her legs still on the floor and her arms stretched out on either side of her on the bed, but he didn’t really want her to do that.

“Come on,” he said, once again stepping closer to her. As he leaned over her to try and help her up, her eyes suddenly snapped open.

“Don’t touch me!” She barked. He could see by the widening of her eyes that she was afraid and she was trying to hide it with anger. But he didn’t really want to deal with that right then, so he backed up a few steps.

“I’m sorry.”

(He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. Scaring her just now or everything else he’d done or had let be done.)

“I know, Tommy.”

She sounded almost like she was tired of saying it. And, he supposed, she did say it a lot. She always knew, it seemed. For him she always did.

She sat up and looked at him, then to the spot she’d been staring at when he first entered the room. He realized now she had been staring at the painting that hung there, but for what reason he could not fathom. As far he knew it was just some painting he’d bought for her upon her request.

“I think I’m going to go somewhere else for a while, Tommy.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“You don’t have to. You could stay here, still.”

(I do still care about you, hung bleakly in the air, unspoken but still very real and there. Or, at least, he hoped.)

“No, I do have to.”

He knew she did. He saw no reason for her to stay other than his own selfish desires. He thought maybe that had been the only reason she’d ever stayed in the first place.

She threw back the covers of her bed and crawled under them and he watched her for a moment. He looked to the painting, trying to decipher what it was about it that fixated her so. Then, abruptly, it struck him.

It was just some painting he’d bought for her, but that was what made it special to her. He’d bought it for her, and as far as he could remember, it was the one time he’d done something truly unselfish for her with no ulterior motives and no strings attached. She had wanted the painting and he had bought her the painting because he had wanted her to have it.

This didn’t feel right. Watching her pull the covers over her head and her breathing begin to even out, he felt like there was something wrong. Which, of course there was, but it felt like there was more wrong than the obvious. He felt as if he could do something right now and it would make something a little bit better, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out what.

(He thought, for a second, to tell her he loved her, but even to him that seemed a little extra cruel. It wouldn’t do any sort of good any longer than the few seconds she let herself believe it for. Then she’d just hate him more and she’d leave sooner.)

And then, maybe that was what was wrong. The idea of her leaving. In his entire life, he couldn’t remember anything except the war keeping her from him. He couldn’t recall a single day when she had been able to see him and she’d chosen not to. She was, by far, the one absolute constant in his life since he’d been a small child.

And now, because of him and his ambitions or stupidity or whatever he wanted to call it, she was leaving. She would be gone, and he had a feeling she would not be coming back. He wouldn’t really blame her if she didn’t.

(He would, but he’d pretend not to.)

He battled with himself for moment, wanting desperately to fling back the covers and pick her up and hold her and somehow convince her everything would be okay and she could stay and it would be alright between them again. But he thought then that she wouldn’t appreciate that much, and he instead turned around and left her room. It still smelled strongly of whiskey.

He thought it would be a good time to use one of those handy boxes he seemed to like so much, but they had been next to useless since he’d kicked Mosley out. Fair, he supposed. He didn’t really deserve to be able to ignore what he’d done for even a few seconds. Not when he thought she might never be able to do the same.

He closed her door behind him and a small voice in the back of his head told him to lock the door. She won’t be able to leave, then, it said. But he didn’t have a key and her door locked from the inside, anyway.

He walked towards his own room and hoped Lizzie wasn’t in bed yet. He’d been successfully avoiding her since she’d found out about what he’d done and the last thing he wanted was to have to deal with her just then.

He thought, as he walked, about what exactly he had seen that day in his office when she’d asked him what she was. When he’d told her she was a whore. The way her eyes had seemed to dull just a bit without her expression changing. He thought how there truly had been a single fibre attaching her still to her perceived humanity, and how he had effectively taken a freshly-sharpened knife to that fibre.

He wondered briefly if it had felt anything like this.

He thought he understood for a moment what she had been thinking sitting there in his office and hearing him say it. For a moment he knew what it must have felt like for her to be down to her wit’s end, her last straw, and to have that last straw plucked from her grasp and broken up into small, unsalvageable pieces.

He knew why he could understand, too. He didn’t want to think it, to allow the thought to even conceive about seeing the light of day, but he knew nonetheless. He’d been her last straw and she, perhaps, was his as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I know this sucks. No I will not be editing it sorry I wrote this at like 3 AM when I was in my combo sad/angy hours. Angst hours.


End file.
